


Late to the Dance

by wintergrey



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Kissing, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-01 02:06:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4001788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintergrey/pseuds/wintergrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the death of Captain America and the formation of SHIELD, the invaluable Agent Carter is replaced by one of her highly trained doubles so that she can take on a new mission--becoming the last super soldier of her era. In the present day, Captain America is hot on the heels of the Winter Soldier, trying to capture and redeem his best friend. Neither of them know that someone else is on their trail, trying to keep Steve from making a mistake that could put Bucky at risk.</p>
<p>(Mostly I just wrote this because I wanted Peggy to kick Steve's ass, I don't know, I'm still annoyed that she got left behind. #staymad.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Late to the Dance

So close. Steve is hot on the heels of the Winter Soldier, racing across the roof of what the back of his mind believes might be a hospital. That's not Bucky he's chasing, those wild blue eyes feverish with hate aren't Bucky. But Bucky's in there somewhere. Steve jumps a gap between buildings without thinking.

His lungs are burning, his mouth is full of blood. He had the Winter Soldier cornered not long ago, slugging it out between dumpsters behind a school. And then he'd gone down, something rolled under his foot, and the Winter Soldier was gone like a ghost. Steve only managed to track him by the sound of his feet on the pavement and the jangle of a chainlink fence being jumped.

The Winter Soldier veers south again, his course taking him closer to the river. Steve is sure he's not going to risk crossing a military base but he can't let the soldier reach the water. The soldier knows where he's going, could go anywhere from there, and Steve won't have a hope in hell of finding him again. The soldier disappears over the side of the building and Steve calculates where best to drop to cut him off. He has a few miles of greenbelt before the soldier can safely break for the water.

Steve should call for backup, should let someone know he's on the Winter Soldier's trail. He doesn't. This is between them, not them and helicopters and spotlights and snipers and sirens. They run south like a pair of dogs on the loose, following the highway. In the greenbelt, racing through the trees, they could be anywhere and in any time.

Steve feels as though he could run forever, lungs full of green and earthy air, chasing Bucky's familiar form. He's pouring sweat under his uniform, the shield bounces against his back, and he feels young again. Until the Winter Soldier turns west to cross the highway, they could be back in Germany or Russia or anywhere seventy years ago.

The water treatment plant. Steve has impressions of pipes and ladders and reservoirs painted white. It's dark now, all the better because no one will get hurt crossing paths with them. Steve chases the soldier in and out of the moonlight, gaining ground steadily now. He wonders if the soldier is wounded, worries about Bucky. The soldier looks over his shoulder, losing precious strides, and Steve catches a glimpse of blue panic now, not rage.

They pass sleeping construction machines, backhoes and dump trucks and bulldozers. The soldier goes up and over, they play a game of hopscotch until he swings up into the scaffolding for some new addition to the plant and begins to climb. Steve follows him without thinking, up criss-crossed pipes and along narrow wooden catwalks. The wind tugs at them both, the moon is high and milky, and the water is too close now.

Steve has nothing to lose, he thinks. He vaults a wide gap between units of scaffolding to gain ground, lands and barely keeps his balance as the entire framework sways. He is counting the distance he lacks in feet now, not yards.

"Bucky, stop." Somehow he has breath to call out. "Don't go."

Two narrow boards make the path he has to run, broken by gaps in the scaffolding, narrowed to one board in places. The soldier is faltering, he favours his right side. Steve remembers his knee sinking in there, finding the armoured plates already damaged and cracking the ribs beneath.

"They won't hurt you, I promise. Bucky!"

The Winter Soldier looks behind him--no, behind them. Past Steve, not at Steve, and whatever he sees makes him blanch. Like seeing a ghost. Steve doesn't have time to turn before something hits him like a wrecking ball.

Falling is terrifying, even now. Steve grabs for scaffolding to slow his fall, catches hold of something but then it yields and his descent continues unabated. He twists when he expects to meet the ground and finds nothing rising up to meet him. His eyes focus just in time for him to see another two-board catwalk below and he hits it with both feet. It holds only a fraction of a second, then splinters.

Still, that split second reprieve is enough for Steve to regain his composure. He's falling into some kind of reservoir, a massive tube the size of a building. He grabs for the framing of what will be a concrete pillar, swings, releases, catches a ladder on the side of the reservoir next, rides it down until it ends unexpectedly several stories above solid ground.

Steve hits hard in muck too shallow to absorb any impact, rolls, and comes up pulling the shield off his back. A boot catches him in the wrist, sending the shield flipping into the shadows like a great, ringing coin. Whoever it is, they've let the Winter Soldier get away from him.

Steve has an impression of a lithe figure slightly smaller than the Winter Soldier and he puts his shoulder down, charges. Hydra must have agents SHIELD doesn't know about and that makes subduing this one a priority. He takes the other person in the midsection, expecting something close to human. He doesn't expect resistance, hands on him as his opponent lets him do the work until they're both falling, then he's launched skyward by a pair of feet dug into his gut.

He's out of air, he hits a scaffolding unit upside down, crashes head first onto packed earth with hundreds of pounds of wood and steel raining down on him. Stunned, he turtles, letting his back take the worst of the blows as he sucks air back into his lungs. When he comes up, he's got a piece of pipe in his hands.

It's so dark down here, he has to go by sound, by the soft, fast footfalls of someone closing on him from the left. They're smaller than he first thought, too small to be so strong. That doesn't keep him from swinging with everything he has. He misses, he knows he's missed halfway through the arc, and he ducks in time to avoid taking two feet full in the face. His opponent clips his shoulder, though, knocks him off balance. Steve staggers back, trips, flails, swings almost at random and catches something that exhales sharply from the blow. A hand closes on his wrist, another gets him by the collar. A body bears him back and back until he digs his heels in just as he hits corrugated steel and the world rings like a bell.

"Stop." The voice is light, clipped. "Steve, I don't want to hurt you."

"Nice try." Steve grabs his opponent by the wrist with his free hand, twists and throws. They move with him, let him throw them through the shadows and into a thin crescent of moonlight where they twist like a cat and land on both feet.

"You have to stop." The figure is all in black, something loose and hooded over body armour not unlike his. This is not Bucky's feral tension nor Steve's own solid readiness. This is lightness, feet moving like dancing, form moving like water even when Steve finds his shield by touch and instinct and throws it.

His target slides out of the way with economy of movement then steps into the shadows to avoid the shield as it deflects off the inner curve of the reservoir for a second attempt at a blow. Gone, like that. Steve catches the shield, grounded by the familiar sting of it striking his palm.

"This wasn't what I had in mind when I said I'd teach you to dance." The voice is above and behind him already, gaining height in what remains of the scaffolding. Steve gauges the movement--direction and speed--then throws the shield again.

The shield takes out the scaffolding with an unholy symphony of struck steel and falling debris. Steve loses the shadow in the chaos, catches the shield on the fly. He has to keep moving himself, sticking to the dark places and dodging the mess he made until he can locate his opponent.

Steve gets found first, the shadow has weight as it swings through the dark and takes him in the side of his head with both feet. His own feet leave the ground, he wrenches himself awkwardly to land on his hands and knees instead of his back. Staggering upright again, he reels into the moonlight.

"Let him go," the shadow says. No. Orders. That's an order. "Steve, you need to let him go. For now."

Steve looks up in time to see the shadow pull in a line that had been attached somewhere overhead. Everything is hazy, and it's not just the moonlight.

"You can't have him back." Steve hefts the shield, tries to gauge where the shadow will dart next. There's no hitting it straight on. "I don't care what you do to me."

"I don't want him back. He was never ours." The shadow drops into the light with him. "But you can't have him either, Steve. Not the way he is. Trust me."

"Who are you?" Steve's free hand is on his gun now. So far the shadow hasn't pulled out any weapons. The need to take out a Hydra agent wars with that and something else. Familiarity. He can't make the same mistake he made with Bucky but he can't just shoot an unarmed person. Not even now.

"Promise me you'll let him come to you." The shadow moves toward him like a willow swaying. Watching is dizzying. "That's all I ask."

It's the reflex to say yes, to obey, that makes Steve pull the gun. "Stay there. Tell me who you are."

"I shouldn't be here at all." The shadow doesn't stop moving. "Officially, I'm not here. I'm just trying to keep you from hurting someone you love."

"I said, don't--" Steve pulls the trigger before the sentence ends.

The shadow sidesteps the bullet, strips his gun from him, puts him on the ground so fast that Steve hardly knows what happened between the crack of the gun and the crack of his head hitting the dirt. The moon blurs, splits in two, then resolves again. He hears the magazine, the bullet from the chamber, then the gun hit the ground.

"Steve." The shadow looms over him, pushes its hood back. "I don't want you to be hurt either."

"This isn't you," he says to her. "You're in a home, you're..."

"That's not me."

This isn't her. Her dark hair is cropped short, a blunt cut straight across her forehead and then straight across at her jaw. Her eyes are like black stars in the pale field of her face.

"That's one of my doubles--her name was Margaret, too. I always liked her. You're hurt." She kneels astride him, kicking the shield beyond his reach as she does. "I don't want to keep hurting you, Steve."

She smells like her. Steve knows that perfume anywhere. His heart aches and for a terrible moment he doesn't care if she's the enemy or not.

"Peggy."

"You're late," she says softly, then kisses him on the mouth.

This is not someone pretending to be a chaste girl from nineteen-forty. She knows how to kiss him, like she owns him, her slender armoured fingers tangling in his sweat-heavy hair to tip his head back so she can kiss him deeper. Steve kisses her back before he can reason his way through, hands on her hips in a way he never would have dared when he saw her last.

When she takes her hands from his hair, Steve reacts, grabs her shoulders to flip them both over. She rolls with him but gets a knee in his gut and his mastery of the moment lasts no time at all before he's on his back again and she's standing over him.

"I can do this all night," she says easily.

The world spins for him as he regains his feet. He kicks the shield and staggers slightly before he recovers it.

"I missed you so much." She finishes undoing the clasps of her armour. That's why she took her hands away. She sheds the jacket and cowl at once. "I'm unarmed. See?" That's never meant she wasn't dangerous, her mind was always so fast and now she's so strong. Without her armour, he might be able to injure her enough to slow her down, though.

"What happened?" The pieces of his gun are scattered in the shadows, he can't get that back. In the tight space he'll have to use everything he knows of angles and momentum to come at her with the shield. She didn't catch him here accidentally. She's inside his range. Closer is safer.

"You died," she says simply. "We did what we had to do, all of us, to get by without you." She's closing on him again and he's let her--again. He's so sure it's her, his heart hurts. "Steve, you have to promise me that you'll let Bucky come to you. Stop chasing him."

"Why?" He keeps moving, she keeps moving, in and out of moonlight and darkness. Dancing.

"His programming. He needs to break it himself. Otherwise he'll just incorporate you into it so he doesn't kill you. Incorporate SHIELD. He'll have a new master and you--" Peggy pauses, then, stops moving. He sees it now, that she's as uncertain about him as he is about her. "--I thought you'd want him to be free."

"I do." Steve stops moving, faces her across a gap so narrow he could touch her if he reached out. She's still, just breathing, and her face turned to him is hopeful--faithful. No one, no matter how well trained, could know how to look at him that way. "Oh God, Peggy."

The shield is gone, the gap is closed, and he's kissing her at last. Steve drops his gloves to touch her for real. Her skin is soft under his bare hands, soft but laced with scars. She's been awake and fighting all these years, there's no question why she beat him so easily.

Peggy strips Steve's armoured jacket from him and then they're really touching at last, sweat on sweat. She lets go of him just long enough to pull her black bra off over her head and stuff it in her pocket. When she kisses him again, she kisses him so hard it takes his breath away. He dreamed of seeing her like this before, in his first life. He never imagined she'd want him like this, that she'd have him in the dark and the dirt, but maybe he should have. Maybe she was waiting for him to be ready, not the other way around.

Here and now, she pulls him down with her and he yields, kicking off his boots and sliding out of his pants as she does the same. It's like fighting all over again but this time she yields to him, lets him twine his fingers with hers and pin her hands to the earth while they kiss. He'd imagined this in some hotel bed, maybe in Paris or London, flowers and champagne and her in pink silk. This is who they are now, this is real, the scrape of grit under his knees and the moonlight shimmering on a greasy puddle just inches from their hands clasped over her head.

"I love you," Peggy says breathlessly. She twists under him but it's only to wrap her legs around him so that his hips are caught between her thighs. "Still. That never changed."

"Peggy." Steve wants to say more but his cock slides against the heat between her thighs and his mind goes blank. The moonlight is on her face, her eyes are dark and her expression is hungry. She bites her lower lip as he rocks his hips, gliding against her wetness.

"Fuck me," she says breathlessly. She tightens her hands on his, hard enough to hurt, and brings her hips up. With the next instinctive thrust of his hips, his cock is pushing into the tight, wet heat of her cunt and that reality breaks him.

Steve knows he's saying something, her name or that he loves her or that he's sorry, as they fuck. He's clumsy with need, scraping his knees, grabbing her hip, kissing her until he tastes blood, as he thrusts into her over and over. Peggy moves with him, her eyes and her voice as serene and tender as they ever were. Her hands on his face soothe him, her body moves with his to tame him and teach him.

"Peggy, please." Steve doesn't even know what he wants until she rolls them both over to straddle him. She pins him in the dirt with her hands on his shoulders, rides him relentlessly, breasts bouncing until he cups them in his hands. "God, yes." He wants her on top, where she belongs. "I missed you. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." Peggy digs her nails into his shoulders and the pain makes him shiver with pleasure. "Tell me you want me."

"I do. Always did. So much." Steve's feet slide, he kicks debris and finds new footing so he can thrust up into her heat. "Don't deserve you, don't know why you want me."

"You're you." She's breathless now, shivering and so tight around his cock, drawing pleasure out of him with every rise and fall. "No matter what else happens, remember that. You've always been enough, Steve."

Steve arches and she holds him down, masters him, as she rides him to orgasm. Coming for her isn't like anything else. It's pleasure and safety in one, he's drawn in and pulled apart at the same time, and he trusts her with everything he has. His voice bounces off the reservoir walls, rises up to the moon, as he comes.

"Stay." His numb hands slide off her sweat-slick arms when he tries to find some purchase as he's surfacing from the depths of the pleasure in which she drowned him. Addled as he is, he's aware that he's on the verge of losing her again. He's afraid she's going to slip back into her black armour and fade away for another seventy years. "Say you'll stay."

"I can't." Peggy kisses him tenderly, nestles against him for a few blessed moments. The press of her body to his wipes all his cares away. "I won't be far this time. I promise, Steve."

"I want--" Steve realizes she hasn't come yet, he doesn't think she has, and he'd be ashamed of his selfishness except that he was only doing what she wanted him to do. "I want to make you come." Even now, he can hardly get the words out and his cheeks burn from being so direct with her.

"I know." Peggy kisses him and he can feel her smile. For a moment, he thinks she's going to tell him no, because she pushes away from him. She reaches down for his hand, though, and draws him up to kneeling between her feet.

In the moonlight, she's a marble carving, a timeless depiction of beauty. This is how he's always wanted to see her, more than he wanted to see her in that imaginary hotel. She strokes his hair and his cheeks, looking down at him with deep affection.

"Please." Steve dares touch her, sliding his hands up her thighs. Any way she wants him, he's hers.

"Like this." She puts one hand on the back of his neck to guide him, opens herself for him with the fingers of the other.

She's slick with her arousal and his semen. All Steve can taste at first is his own come but it's on her, in her, so it's hers now. He licks her clean, learning just how to tease her clit and fuck her with his tongue to please her, plunges his tongue into her until all he can taste is her.

Peggy's breath comes in ragged gasps, her thighs tremble under his hands. She grabs him by the hair, directs him to cover her clit with his mouth, and rides him like that until her whole body shakes with every pass of his tongue. When she comes, she bucks against him and her knees give so that he has to help hold her up with his hands tight on her ass while she says his name over and over again.

After, she leans over him, breathing hard. She strokes his hair and shoulders, shelters him against her. "You're so good," she whispers in his ear. "You were always so good, Steve. I knew you'd be good for me."

"How will I find you?" Steve hides his shame at needing her so much against her soft belly.

"I'll find you," she says. "You haven't lost me yet. But I think your friends are coming for you."

Steve pulls away and she's right, there are helicopters in the distance. They're still so far away that he almost feels them more than hears them. The cadence and intensity of the blades beating the air can only mean that SHIELD is on the way.

"Shit." Someone sighted him chasing Bucky and called it in. It would take a while to filter through the system but they'd contact him, not come in force. Steve checks his wrist for his communicator only to find it gone. His earpiece is similarly absent.

"Sorry." Peggy tosses something his way and Steve catches the broken communicator before it hits him in the chest. "I couldn't have you calling them in on me."

"You'll have to teach me that one." Steve should get dressed. He's naked and filthy and bloody. All he can smell still is her sex, he needs to wash. Instead he kneels there to watch her gather her things and dress. She's still the most beautiful woman in the world.

"I will." Peggy tosses his pants his way. "Get dressed, Rogers."

"Yes, ma'am." Steve can't refuse her, especially not when his body stirs at the tone of her voice when she orders him around. "I'll tell them Bucky kicked my ass again, shall I?"

"Good idea." She's already dressed, shrouded in that black cowl. "Remember what I said about him." She brings him his jacket and steals a kiss in exchange.

"You're sure he'll come back to me?" Steve struggles into the jacket, dragging it on over his clammy, gritty skin.

"I've had a long time to study his programming." Peggy pulls something from her belt, that rope device he saw her with earlier. "When it breaks, and it will, he'll remember you best, he'll be looking for home. Make sure your face is out there. Have people keep an eye out in Brooklyn. He'll come back, Steve. I did. I will."

"Same here." Steve says, ignoring his aches as he gets to his feet to reclaim his shield. "When I know where you are, Peggy, I'm coming. I can't stay away."

"I'll get my records out." Peggy flips a grappling hook up into the dark and it catches on something. "You still owe me a dance."

She's gone in an instant, disappearing into the shadow almost as soon as her feet leave the ground. Steve listens for her but she moves so quietly, he can't hear her above the approaching helos.

Steve's got a lot of explaining to do. He takes a running jump for the ladder and just manages to catch the last rung. It's a long climb out of the hole. Plenty of time to get his lies in order--keep them simple.

"I don't want to talk about it," he says to Clint as he swings onto one of the helicopters. Clint snorts, shaking his head.

"No problem, man. If I looked like that, I wouldn't want to talk about it either."


End file.
